The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: Baahaabaa Mourning the Departure of His Friends]

[Ill.u.s.tration Note: BAAHAABAA MOURNING THE DEPARTURE OF HIS FRIENDS

In all the history of great friendships there is nothing more touching and more n.o.ble than the beautiful bond which existed between Baahaabaa, the simple, primitive chief of the Filbertines and the white men who spent the happiest months of their lives on his island and then so strangely vanished. For several days after their departure he spoke no word. But every evening at sunset he took his place opposite an opening in the reef where the Kawa had first made her appearance and there he sat until darkness covered him. "Whom are you awaiting?"

his chieftains asked him. He shook his head mournfully; memories in the Filberts are mercifully short. Then placing his hand over his heart he said, "I know not who it is, but something is gone--from here."

Three weeks later when this photograph was taken he was still keeping up his lonely vigil.]

We tried to help him. While the Captain pointed his astrolabe sunward and announced the figures Whinney and I, like tailors' a.s.sistants, took them down, Whinney doing the adding, I the subtracting and Sw.a.n.k the charting. The results were confusion worse confounded.

And then a dreadful thing happened.

The compa.s.s-plant sickened and died.

Whether some sea-water splashed into the sh.e.l.l or whether it was just change of environment, I do not know. But day by day it drooped and faded.

I shall never forget the night she breathed her last. With white faces we sat about the tiny brown bowl in which lay our hope of orientation.

In Triplett's great rough paw was a fountain-pen filler of fresh water which he gently dropped on the flowerlet's unturned face. At exactly one-thirty, solar time, the tiny petals fluttered faintly and closed.

"She's gone," groaned Triplett, and dashed a tear, the size of a robin's egg, from his furrowed cheek. In that ghastly light we stared at each other.

We were lost!

From then on we gave up all attempts at navigation and went in for plain sailing. Taking an approximate north from sun and stars we simply headed our tight little craft on her way and let her pound.

A sort of desperate feeling, the panic which always comes to those who are lost, led us to wild outbursts of gaiety and certain excesses in the matter of use of our supplies. Every evening we opened fresh gourds of _hoopa_ and made large inroads into our stores of _pai_, pickled _gobangs_ and raw crawfish.

How long this kept up I cannot say, for we had given up time reckoning along with other forms of arithmetic. But I well remember that it was the Captain who had to intervene at last.

"Look here, boys," he said. "Do you realize that you're eatin' an'

drinkin' yourselves outer house an' home? We got jest a week's grub in our lockers, if we go on short rations. Beyond that,"--he waved his arm toward the ocean, as if to say "overboard for ours."

"Look here!" cried Sw.a.n.k excitedly, "do you suppose I want to go in for one of these slow starvation stunts, perishing miserably on half a biscuit a day! O man! that's old stuff. Every explorer that ever wrote has done that, you know--falling insensible in the boat, drifting around for weeks, being towed into port, sunbaked, like mummies. Not on your life! What I propose is one final party--let's eat the whole outfit tonight, hook, line and sinker."

We carried the proposition by acclamation, except Triplett who spat sourly to windward, a thing few men can do. And we were as good as our word.

Late into the night we roared our sea-songs over the indifferent ocean, pledging our lost ones, singing, laughing and weeping with the abandon of lost sheep. With Triplett it was a case of forcible feeding for he kept trying to secrete his share of the menu in various parts of his person, slipping fistsful of crawfish in his shirt-bosom and pouring his cup of _hoopa_ into an old fire-extinguisher which rolled in the ship's waist. Pinioning his arms we squirted the fiery liquid between his set jaws, after which he too gave himself up to unrestrained celebration.

Our supplies lasted for two days, and for two days our wild orgy continued.

We have all read of the hunter lost in trackless forest wilds who finally falls exhausted on his pommel and is brought safely home by his loose-reined mustang.

That is exactly what happened to us. I know I am departing from literary custom when I abandon the picture of slow starvation, with its attractive episodes of shoe-eating, sea-drinking, madness, cannibalism and suicide which make up the final scene of most tales of adventure.

But I must tell the truth.

While we caroused, our helm was free, the tiller banging, sail flapping, boom gibing, blocks rattling. It was as if we had thrown the reins of guidance on the neck of our staunch little seahorse and she, superbly st.u.r.dy creature, proceeded to bring us home. On we went across the waters, steered only by fate.

In the midst of a rousing rendering of "Hail, hail, the gang's all here," we were startled by a grinding crash that threw us in a heap on the floor. Down the companion way burst a flood of green water through which we struggled to the steeply slanting deck, where on ourport bow I glimpsed the picture of a pleasant sandy beach, trees, ships, docks, a large white hotel and hundreds of people--white and brown, in bathing! In one thundering burst of amazement the truth swept over me; we were in the harbor of Papeete! In the next instant strong arms seized me and I was borne through the breakers and up the beach.

Well, they were all there! O'Brien--dear old Fred, and Martin Johnson, just in from the Solomons with miles of fresh film; McFee, stopping over night on his way to the West Indies; Bill Beebe, with his pocket full of ants; Safroni, "Mac" MacQuarrie, Freeman, "Cap" Bligh--thinner than when I last saw him in Penang--and, greatest surprise of all, a bluff, harris-tweeded person who peered over the footboard of my bed and roared in rough sea-tones:

"Well, as I live and breathe, Walter Traprock!"

It was Joe Conrad.

I told my story that night in the dining-room of the Tiare, or, at least, I told just enough of it to completely knock my audience off their seats. For many good reasons I avoided exact details of lat.i.tude, longitude, and the like.

No island is sacred among explorers.

"Gentlemen," I said, rather neatly, "I cannot give you the Filberts'

lat.i.tude or longitude. But I will say that their pulchritude is 100!"

The place was in an uproar. They plied me with questions, and Dr.

Funk's! It was a night of rejoicing and triumph which I shall never forget, and which only Fred O'Brien can describe.

The later results are too well known to need recital, Sw.a.n.k's success, Whinney's position in the Academy of Sciences, my own recognition by the Royal Geographic Society.

The tight little Kawa still rides the seas, Triplett in command.

She is kept fully stocked, ready to sail at a moment's notice. Soon, perhaps, the wanderl.u.s.t will seize us again and, throwing down our lightly won honors, we will once more head for the trackless trail.

But we will not make for the Filberts. Too tender are the memories which wreathe those opal isles, too irrevocable the changes which must have taken place. Rather let us preserve their undimmed beauty in our hearts.

On our next trip we have agreed, all of us, that by far the best plan will be to leave the choice of our route, destination and return (if any) to the Kawa herself.

OTHER BOOKS BY WALTER E. TRAPROCK

Who's Hula in Hawaii 1899

Dances, Near-dances and No-dances of the Far East 1902

Through Borneo on a Bicycle 1904

Curry-Dishes for Moderate Incomes 1907

Sobs from the South Seas-Poems 1912

Around Russia on Roller Skates 1917

Crazy With Tahiti-Translations from Native Folklore 1918

How to Explore, and What 1919